Largest Corp profit in American history

heiney9

Guess who recorded the largest profit in the history of American Corporate organization. The number is 40.6 billion and it was earned on the backs of every American.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/business/01cnd-exxon.html?hp

Makes me sick and the whole BS about refineries being at capacity and scarcity of reserves is a bunch of crap. It's rape, pure and simple. When a company can continually set records for profits and attribute it to an increase in raw oil prices that's not an industry in trouble that's an industry trying to screw as many people to make HUGE profits.

I'm not against the free enterprise system but quit lying and making up excuses as to why oil has skyrocketed in price. Just come out and say we can raise it to any level we want because we want to be greedy and make as much money as we can. We know no matter what the price of a gallon of fuel, people will still buy it and we are taking advantage of that economic fact.

Stop trying to make everyone believe prices are rising because of scarcity or problems with refining or delivering the product to the local stations.

H9

P.s. end rant!

Demiurge

Okay, this is the dumbest thing I have read in a while.

Go take an econ class.

mhardy6647

Of course, with the price of oil rising, the price of fueling the tankers to deliver gasoline to the neighborhood station's gotta rise. Gotta cover the costs of that.

"Energy" companies have to make their money now as a hedge against the not-too-distant time when they will have no product to sell and thus no revenues to record.

It's marginally better than the tobacco industry. They have to make profits in the short term because they actively kill their customers.

heiney9

Demiurge wrote: »

Okay, this is the dumbest thing I have read in a while.

Go take an econ class.

Your right the price of a barrel of oil has nothing to do with an oil company making the highest profit ever for a corporation when they come out and say the reason is because of the high prices of oil. Their words not mine.

shack

Demand for oil and oil based products have a larger effect than what is being charged at the pump for gas. Retail fuel is just one piece of the puzzle. Their costs are up as well. Record profits in all industries are normally driven by volume...not retail price. The question is are they making a significantly larger margin than when oil prices were lower. If that is the case...then yes...they are gouging.

Demiurge

heiney9 wrote: »

Your right the price of a barrel of oil has nothing to do with an oil company making the highest profit ever for a corporation when they come out and say the reason is because of the high prices of oil. Their words not mine.

How much money do they spend? What is their profit margin? I know the answer, but I will let you do the leg work.

We have big problems when American's believe a company shouldn't be making a profit. It's the equivalent to saying that you, as a citizen, should only be allowed enough money to purchase exactly what you need. I doubt you'd go for that, well....maybe you would.

The IRS accepts checks and money orders. Send all your "profits" off to them for all the money you made on the backs of people less fortunate than yourself. :rolleyes:

treitz3

It's not that they can't make a profit, hell that's why I'm in business....for profit. It's just a little unsettling to hear record profits at the same time gas is as high as it is.

heiney9

Demiurge wrote: »

How much money do they spend? What is their profit margin? I know the answer, but I will let you do the leg work.

We have big problems when American's believe a company shouldn't be making a profit. It's the equivalent to saying that you, as a citizen, should only be allowed enough money to purchase exactly what you need. I doubt you'd go for that, well....maybe you would.

The IRS accepts checks and money orders. Send all your "profits" off to them for all the money you made on the backs of people less fortunate than yourself. :rolleyes:

In just about every post I read from you, you like to put words in people's mouth. I never said they had no right to make a profit. What I stated was quite trying to justify the high price of fuel by making up excuses that aren't true. Just come out and say "we know no matter what we charge, people will pay it, we want to make as big a profit as possible for our share holders so don't expect the price of fuel to ever go down".

It's the smoke and mirror's as to why oil/gasoline has skyrockted that annoys me not that they are making a profit. All business's deserve to make a profit, but a bit more of the truth would be a good thing.

H9

candyliquor35m

Just think how much the saudis are making. $40 billion must be a drop in the bucket to them. Kinda scary when you think about it. I think they should pay off our national debt.

It's puts a whole new perspective on the word "owned".

Demiurge

treitz3 wrote: »

It's not that they can't make a profit, hell that's why I'm in business....for profit. It's just a little unsettling to hear record profits at the same time gas is as high as it is.

Again, what are the margins.....? Nobody wants to talk about that percentage, because I know for a fact if you compared their profit margin to my businesse's profit margin that it's less than mine. It's an "outrage" because it's billions of dollars instead of thousands of dollars.

The only thing that puts it all into perspective is percentages, but that is never a part of the 'Evil Oil Company' articles in the newspapers and on the web.

Also, they employ a lot of people. All of that money gets circulated around in the economy.

Demiurge

heiney9 wrote: »

In just about every post I read from you, you like to put words in people's mouth. I never said they had no right to make a profit. What I stated was quite trying to justify the high price of fuel by making up excuses that aren't true. Just come out and say "we know no matter what we charge, people will pay it, we want to make as big a profit as possible for our share holders so don't expect the price of fuel to ever go down".

It's the smoke and mirror's as to why oil/gasoline has skyrockted that annoys me not that they are making a profit. All business's deserve to make a profit, but a bit more of the truth would be a good thing.

H9

Is there a reason you can't answer the question about the margins or are you going to keep going on this emotional rant?

As to the rest of your post, they don't need to justify anything. They don't set the price of oil.

jdhdiggs

Let's simplify everything for a little lesson: If it cost's me $1 to build/ship/sell a widget and I sell it for $1.10. Now prices on raw goods rise and it costs me $2 to build and I sell it for $2.20. Am I gouging the consumer? Granted my profit rose 100%, but my profit margin stayed the same... I still only made 10% even with my "record" profits. See the comparison here?

treitz3

Demiurge wrote: »

Again, what are the margins.....?

Admitted, I have not one freakin' clue. All I know is that my gas bill exceeds that of my mortgage every month and at the same time, they are making record profits. Put two and two together and that's why it's unsettling to me.

Demiurge

jdhdiggs wrote: »

Let's simplify everything for a little lesson: If it cost's me $1 to build/ship/sell a widget and I sell it for $1.10. Now prices on raw goods rise and it costs me $2 to build and I sell it for $2.20. Am I gouging the consumer? Granted my profit rose 100%, but my profit margin stayed the same... I still only made 10% even with my "record" profits. See the comparison here?

Yep, I did that exercise in another one of these "oil profits" threads we had last year. There's never a response for it either.

It's not that hard to understand, but I suspect people just want something to **** about.

The market is already answering. We're getting hybrid vehicles because people don't like the price of gas (ME INCLUDED). I just don't care that a business is making money on gas when the price of oil is $99 a barrell.

shack

heiney9 wrote:

It's the smoke and mirror's as to why oil/gasoline has skyrockted that annoys me not that they are making a profit.

I don't think it is smoke and mirrors. It's all right there for anyone to read. As a publicly traded company their financials are available for anyone who cares to take the time.

As much as I hate the high gas prices...IMO the real gouging is coming from the wholesalers and retailers who raise the prices in anticipation of the next load costing more rather than making a marign on what they paid for current inventory.

heiney9

~9.76% in 2005
just a tad over 10% in 2006
just a tad over 10% in 2007.

shack

A 10% PM is pretty slim in the corp. world.

jdhdiggs

So then the question would become what kind of profits would be ok and not cosidered gauging?

jwhitakr

Good for Exxon. I know at least one of my funds in my 401k has a chunk in Exxon, so this is good news.

PhantomOG

pmckeealaska

All that profit and yet they have been fighting a 2.5 billion judgement against them for dumping millions of gallons of oil in my backyard here in Alaska for almost 20 years. Give me a break. Talk about greed!

The Judge

Well it's alright now, in fact it's just Gas.

Hillary or Obama will take away the profit from the Oil Gluttons and give us all a nice little piece of the pie by bringing down prices.

Did anyone take any of her profits when she made 100G's in cattle futures?

tom t

i think alot has to do with the quanity they sell. if you made even 2 cents on the gallon but sold a quad-zillion gallons,well theres your answer. its in the numbers my friends. everybody is using more fuel then ever

tom t

if goverment starts taking away profits from companys we are all in trouble in the long run.

jdhdiggs

The Judge wrote: »

Hillary or Obama will take away the profit from the Oil Gluttons and give us all a nice little piece of the pie by bringing down prices.

Wow, can I have some of your drugs?

shack

jdhdiggs wrote: »

So then the question would become what kind of profits would be ok and not cosidered gauging?

The AVERAGE of all corporate profits since WWII has been roughly 7.5% which is of course good companies, bad companies, good times, bad times.

How much do you EXPECT the company you have invested in to return to you the stockholder?

Not all profits will be retuned to the stockholders in the form of dividends as some must be put back into the company in the form of retained earnings (capital) for various reasons. Been hearing about HUGE losses in some industries? Those losses were absorbed by the retained earnings the companies had accumulated during good times. Once gone...the company is technically bankrupt. In order to grow some of the profit must be used for capital expenditures. Etc...etc..etc...

There is no hard and fast number. The free market ultimately takes care of gouging.

jdhdiggs

Shack, my question was aimed at those who think XOM is gauging, not you... Personally, I'm glad that market is so competitive otherwaise the margins could easily push 40-60%.

Everyone complains they (O&G) make "Too much" but there are too questions they invariably fail to answer: "What were the profit margins?" and "What would an ok level of profit be?" Since the first was shown, I was just asking the second...

hoosier21

First, I hate the high cost of gas today.

But I agree, as soon as the goverment starts to limit the profit of a company, OMG we are in trouble.

As jdhdiggs asked, how much profit is acceptable to you?

Just becasue you need gas for everyday A to B travel, there should not be a "limit" to how much a company can or "should" make.

And please please please do not ask or demand that our goverment introduce any kind of new "law" to control these greedy oil companies, I mean this is home of capitalism for Christ sake.

If you found out Polk Audio made 50% profit on speakers, would you have such a reaction? So why are you so upset O&G companies are making a profit?

It's just because you need the product, and it pisses you off, get over it.

Again, like jdhdiggs said, be glad they aren't making 40-50% profits.

George Grand

Of course we can't limit profits. That's not the American way. Finding the ****, roughing them up a little, and throwing them in Boston Harbor is the American way.

shack

George Grand wrote:

Of course we can't limit profits. That's not the American way. Finding the ****, roughing them up a little, and throwing them in Boston Harbor is the American way.

I thought that was reserved for politicians....

Demiurge

shack wrote: »

I thought that was reserved for politicians....

Senators girlfriends....